


all the words i once believed

by darlingargents



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Amnesia, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Character Study, Episode: s02e21-22 Twilight of the Apprentice, Gen, Not Prime Time 2018, Sparring
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-13
Updated: 2018-07-13
Packaged: 2019-05-26 08:47:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14997179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darlingargents/pseuds/darlingargents
Summary: Anakin Skywalker wakes up after fifteen years with a body that isn’t his.





	all the words i once believed

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LittleRaven](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleRaven/gifts).



> The title of this story is an altered line from [Helpless/Bloodlines Pt. II by Sir Sly](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdihudnIGLU). The full verse is:
> 
>  
> 
> _Everything I know is finally gone_  
>  _The things I had, the ones I love_  
>  _Again, again_  
>  _All the words that I had once believed_  
>  _I'm not sure we'll ever meet_  
>  _Again, again_
> 
>  
> 
> Eternal thanks to my beta, a gift among mortals.
> 
> Recipient: your amnesia suggestion from a previous letter jumped out at me, and I fell completely in love with it and sorta ran away with it. I think I got a little carried away, but hopefully it's still enjoyable!

**i. anakin**

 

Everything is glimpses and flashes, and everything hurts.

 

He wakes up for a few moments, gasping out Ahsoka's name. She'd left — she'd left him, she'd left the Order — and then what? What had happened after that?

He stares at the ceiling. Something is covering his eyes, and they're tinted red. He tries to move his hands to take off whatever is covering his eyes, and they can't move. They're heavy, and strapped down.

He feels a scream building in his throat, and everything breaks apart into shining shards and goes dark.

 

It could have been hours or days or weeks the next time he's lucid. He sees a face, hovering over him; Ahsoka, he thinks, but that can't be right. Ahsoka is gone. Ahsoka is not an adult. This woman looks like her, but Ahsoka would have no reason to be here, and Ahsoka is at least fifteen years younger.

But where is _here_?

"Where am I?" he tries to say, but it's like something is stuck in his throat. The words come out garbled.

Why does everything hurt?

"Atollon," the woman says, and she even _sounds_ like Ahsoka. "You're injured, stop trying to move."

He's been straining at whatever is holding him down, he realizes. Has he been possessed? Drugged in such a way that he's acting erratically? He can't think of any other reason why he'd be strapped down.

He _is_ injured, though, that is clear. Whatever is covering his face is part of a helmet, and there's a respiratory unit attached. He can't see the rest of his body, but he assumes it's similarly injured.

The strange thing is, something is telling him that those are old injuries. His only immediate, recent injuries are his aching head and fragmented mind. Everything else hurts, but has the ache of an old wound.

"Why am I on Atollon?" he asks, and winces at the sound of the words. What is wrong with his voice?

He has a lot of questions, it seems.

"I brought you here. After Malachor." That woman sounds a _lot_ like Ahsoka. He squints at her, but she's a little far away, and he thinks the head injury might've done something to his vision as well.

"What happened on Malachor?"

Something in her face changes. "You don't remember?"

"No. The last thing I remember is… I don't know. Utapau? I was there with Obi-Wan. It was after Ahsoka left."

The woman stands so quickly she half-stumbles. " _What_?" she says. "You — Utapau? What?"

"I'm guessing I've missed something?"

"Yes," she says. She's trembling all over. "I — yes. I need to go."

She practically falls over in her haste to get out the door. Anakin frowns, closes his eyes for a moment, and considers.

He must have missed more than he thought.

 

It's maybe an hour later when the woman comes back. She sits close enough beside his bed that he can actually make out the details of her face, and it's uncomfortable, how much she looks like Ahsoka. It's like fate is taunting him with missing her.

"You have amnesia. You've lost the last fifteen years of your life," she says bluntly.

Anakin's breath seizes in his chest, and he lets out a half-strangled gasp. If he could actually move, he would be shaking like a leaf, but he can't; he's trapped in this useless, unmoving body. The woman watches for a moment, and then quietly says, "Hey, Skyguy."

Everything seems to slam to a halt. "Snips," he says, his voice choked.

A tear runs down her cheek, and she furiously wipes it away. "I never thought I'd see you again," she whispers.

"Hey," he says, and tries to lift his hands, to touch her — to hold her hand and comfort her — but they can't move. Right. It's fine, though. "It's okay. I'm here now."

"Yeah." She rubs her eyes again, furiously, and takes his hand. He's definitely wearing some kind of glove, but he can feel the warmth of her skin through it. "You're here, Skyguy. You're here."

 

**ii. ahsoka**

 

She doesn't let herself break down until she's outside, and then she lets herself completely fall apart. She presses her hands over her mouth to muffle the sound and wails. She's crying harder than she can remember ever crying before. Even leaving the Order the first time didn't hurt this much.

It's probably fifteen minutes before she's calm enough that she can let herself have company. She stands, shaky, and makes her way to the _Ghost_ , where Hera is waiting to know how it went. Kanan is away, with Ezra, which is probably better, because she's not sure she can face both of them at once. She isn't sure if she can make herself say it until she's sitting across from Hera in the galley and the words are coming out of her mouth.

"He recognizes me. He remembers me. He's… he's Anakin again."

"Does that mean you want to go through with the restorative surgery?" Hera asks, calm as ever. Ahsoka can tell she's feeling something, but one of Hera's talents has always been the ability to set aside her own emotions to help others. It's probably repression, and it's probably not healthy, but right now Ahsoka needs it.

"Maybe?" Their doctors had done a scan on his body when Ahsoka had first brought him back, to find out his physical capacities and decide what level of restraints were needed, and found that the damages to his body were, though immense, quite treatable with a handful of surgeries and a few days in a bacta tank. He would never be quite the same again, but they could certainly restore his lungs to mostly-functional capacity and fix the burns enough that they wouldn't be at risk of infection just by being exposed to air. Ahsoka wonders if that meant the Empire had lied to him, made him believe he'd be trapped forever in the suit.

She supposes that a damaged person is easier to control. And she hates herself for that realization, because she can't tell if her own logic for considering not giving him the restorative surgery is the same.

"You should probably decide," Hera says.

Ahsoka nods. "I just… what if he remembers?"

Hera is silent for a moment, and Ahsoka swallows back the lump in her throat. It's the distillation of her fears. It's the terror that's paralyzing her. It's the reason she sobbed her eyes out the moment she left Anakin's bedside.

She barely survived losing him the first time, and she doesn't know if she can do it again.

"If he remembers," Hera says after a long, aching moment, "he may have a change of heart. He may not, but it's a possibility. He'll remember what it felt like to be younger and a Jedi like it was yesterday. And — and you'll be with him." Ahsoka inhales sharply, unsure if the feeling in her lungs is grief or regret, and Hera pauses.

She'd filled Hera in on what had happened with her leaving the Order some time ago, and confessed her fear that her departure contributed to Anakin's fall a few days before, when they'd brought him back, in the chaotic, terrifying days of waiting and wondering what would happen. Hera had not told her it was nonsensical to believe she had anything to do with it, which is probably a good thing, because it would've rung false. She'd simply said, quiet and contemplative, that Anakin made his choice, and every other choice made around him led up to it. "Your contribution was a part of it," she'd said, "but that doesn't mean it wouldn't have happened if you'd been there. Maybe so, maybe not, but you can't know. Only the Force can know. It doesn't matter."

Ahsoka still isn't sure how she feels about that.

Hera continues. "It might not swing him entirely back, but I think you might be able to help him along. And if he doesn't come back…"

Ahsoka doesn't let her thoughts go there. "Thank you, Hera." She stands, and Hera does too. Hera crosses the space between them and loops her arms around Ahsoka's waist, comfortable and casual. Ahsoka presses an absent kiss to the side of her mouth, and Hera smiles.

"Anything, love."

 

She confirms with the doctors of the fleet that they can perform the surgeries in about a week all together, starting that day, and then goes to see Anakin again. The room that he's in is a hospital room, and a nice one, too — a corner unit, with windows on two sides, and a bed that is comfortable and large enough for Anakin's massive frame. There's a small table next to the chair that Ahsoka has spent so much time in over the last few days, and she absently considers picking some flowers to display. That's what you do in sickrooms, right?

It's possible she's watched too many holodramas. And she's rarely been in sickrooms, anyway — most of her friends who got injured were healed as quickly as possible and re-deployed. Or died on the field.

It's an unhappy thought, and she pushes it away as she sits down near the end of Anakin's bed. Anakin, not Vader, even in the mask. He stirs, and she thinks he looks at her, but it's hard to be sure.

"Snips," he says, and she thinks she can hear relief under the voice modulator. She smiles without thinking.

"Skyguy."

"I've missed you. It's boring in here."

"Yeah. I wanted to tell you, we can give you surgery to fix your injuries. You have some old wounds that haven't been treated properly, but the doctors think they can get you out of this suit in a week or so with surgeries and bacta."

"That would be nice." He flexes his fingers. "I don't think it suits me."

_More than you can imagine_ , Ahsoka thinks. "No, I don't think so."

"Am I ever going to be uncuffed?"

"Not before your surgeries, sorry," Ahsoka says. "It's standard protocol for en—" _Enemy agents_. Kriff.

He lifts his head a little, and she can just about imagine him squinting at her in puzzlement. "For what?"

"For non-members of the Rebel Alliance."

"The what?"

"It's a long story." She pauses. "You were gone for a while, Skyguy."

"I'm getting that." He drops his head on his pillow unceremoniously, and lets out a sigh. Or, well, it's probably supposed to be a sigh, but with the modulator it just sounds like a threatening growl. She stifles a laugh.

"Did we win?"

"What?" Ahsoka blinks at him.

"The war. I guess it's been a long time now? Or is it still going? Please tell me we kicked the Seppies to the curb."

It's like hot acid is rising in her chest, burning her up. Because she hadn't even _considered_ , and how selfish — how foolish was that? She has to explain this to him, and she can't lose him. Her hands are trembling, and she presses them into her lap to keep them still, and stares at Anakin's vital signs output monitor, because she isn't sure she can look at him right now.

"But… Rebel Alliance?" he adds when she doesn't say anything. " _Did_ the Seppies win? Are the Jedi fighting them?

Her breath leaves her lungs all at once. The Jedi. Somehow, she didn't think of that either.

"Ahsoka?"

She makes herself look at him, and she can feel his concern, which almost makes up for the fact that she can't see the expression on his face. She nods to herself, steeling her resolve.

She needs to be strong enough for him, because she owes that to him. To an Anakin who is mentally fifteen years younger and, for all philosophical purposes, never killed his own people.

"It's a long story."

 

**iii. anakin**

 

Ahsoka leaves him when she's done with the story, and Anakin barely notices anything around him through the emotions whirling through his body like a galestorm, but he can see her wiping tears off her face as she closes the door behind her with a final-sounded click.

She'd remained steady throughout it all, telling him the whole story. The war ended when he killed Dooku. The Jedi being wiped out by the clones, on the orders of the now-Emperor Palpatine. The remaining Jedi, including her, scattered to the far ends of the galaxy just to survive. The rebel alliance, only forming in the last year.

He got the sense that she'd been talking around something, some truth that she didn't want to tell him, but he can't imagine what would be _worse_ than all of that.

She'd ended it by telling him that his surgeries are scheduled to begin at the end of the day. Which was probably the only good thing she'd told him — he desperately wants to get out of this suit and out of this bed. To see this new galaxy for himself.

It's the thought that he holds onto when the doctors show up and put him under.

 

He dreams while he's unconscious. Just flashes, and he thinks maybe they're memories from the fifteen missing years, because he can't remember them but they don't feel like just dreams. They feel real. But they don't make sense. Flames and all-consuming rage; a man in a uniform he doesn't recognize, staring up at him in terrified subjugation; Palpatine's voice, telling him that he's done very well — and to keep going; Dooku's head falling to the ground alongside his body.

When he wakes up, they don't fade away like dreams often do, but stay indistinct and fuzzy, barely there, like a broken holoprojector.

And when he wakes up, he's not in a suit anymore.

There's still something over his face, but just the lower half of it, this time. He can feel cool air in his lungs as he breathes in and out. The rest of his body is sore and stiff, but feels mobile — and he's no longer cuffed to the bed. It's more of a relief than he would've expected to lift his hands and look at them through his real eyes, without a mask.

Both his hands are metal, now, and it throws him for a moment. Ahsoka hadn't mentioned why he was in the suit or what had happened to him. Maybe she didn't even know. He didn't get the impression that they'd seen much of each other since — well, since he could remember. And that doesn't make sense, because he remembers the promise he made to himself that he'd find her as soon as the war ended.

He pushes his thoughts aside for the moment; he needs to see what this new body actually looks like, needs to find out how it moves and how he fits into it. He's alone, but he's free to move, so he sits up, wincing as he does so. There's nothing attached to him, so he presumes that he can get up if he so chooses, and stands, his legs shaky. Both of them metal, too, and considering how difficult it is to hold his weight up, he thinks he might still need some time to get used to them.

There's a mirror on the other side of the room. He walks over to it slower than he can ever remember needing to walk, and looks into it.

He doesn't recognize the face staring back at him.

It's almost past the point of horrifying. Like it hit that and swung back to fascinating. Part of him can't believe that it's actually his face, and if he shoves back all logic, he can examine it with detachment. He leans close to study the face that can't really be his.

His mouth and nose are covered with a white plasteel breathing mask, strapped tight to his face. A tube runs down from the bottom and out of sight. The rest of his face is covered in scar tissue, still red even though the injuries are clearly old. It's like his skin is just scars; he can't see a single inch of undamaged tissue on his entire face. His eyes seem mostly undamaged, but his eyelashes are gone, and it's a small detail that makes his stomach turn over in horror.

He closes his eyes, gives himself five deep breaths, and opens them again.

It's still not enjoyable to look at. But it no longer terrifies him.

Progress. Maybe.

He turns away from the mirror and looks for clothes.

 

Someone left a set of robes similar to his old Jedi uniform, and he's almost surprised that it fits when he pulls it on. His false limbs seem to have extended his natural body, making him taller — which probably contributed to his difficulty walking. Someone must have measured him, because the dark brown robes fit snugly but with breathing room.

When he clips the armour over top — not much, and not the same, but still armour — he feels like he's settling into a role that, for him, he's been playing for the last three years. A Jedi general. The galaxy is changed enough that it doesn't mean anything to anyone else, but it makes him feel at home in his own skin, if only for a moment. It's a small comfort.

The breathing mask has a tank that filters the air around him, which he attaches it to the back of his uniform, and then he's ready to go.

He takes a deep breath, and leaves the hospital room.

 

There's no one directly outside the door, but he can hear footsteps and voices, and he follows them. The medbay hall twists and turns a few times before exiting to a large hangar, which is not quite teeming with activity. Droids and pilots are working on their ships, small groups of beings who look like civilians sit together and chat, and a group of beings are unloading supplies off of a ship.

He doesn't see Ahsoka anywhere. He's not sure why he expected to see her, but he did, and without her, he doesn't know anyone. He feels almost a little lost. Anakin Skywalker, Jedi general, wouldn't feel lost in a situation like this, but he's not that person anymore.

He's not sure how long he stands there before it happens, but something changes in the hangar not long after he enters it. Someone spots him, and whispers to their friend, and that person continues on, and soon everyone in the hangar who isn't currently occupied with something else is either looking at him or trying very hard not to.

The back of his neck prickles. The feeling in the room is half fear and half — hatred. It's spreading like a virus, and even the people who are actively busy are stopping in their activity to look at him and then very quickly away, either fear or rage in their mind.

He's about to leave — to go back to the medbay, and wait for someone, anyone, to come along and tell him what in the nine Corellian hells is happening — when Ahsoka shows up, pushing through the crowd and glaring at anyone blocking her path to make them scatter.

She hurries to his side and grabs his arm, pulling him along without stopping. "Come on, we need to go."

"Where were you?" he asks as she pulls them through the whispering crowd towards a small ship. She throws a glance over her shoulder to him.

"You woke up sooner than we expected. You were supposed to be out for another six hours. The doctor just found me to tell me you were gone. And it's a good thing I found you, too, you're causing a disruption."

" _Why_?" he asks as she drags him onto the ship and closes the door behind them. "They don't know me, why were they acting like that?"

Ahsoka blows out a breath. "You had a somewhat infamous reputation. Somehow it got out that we had you on base, and I guess someone connected the dots."

"But who _was_ I?"

"It's complicated." She bites her lip, and sighs. "I'll explain sometime. But not now." She shows him into the small galley of the ship. "This is my ship. You can stay here until we find another place for you. I have someone else to stay with."

"Girlfriend? Boyfriend?" Maybe that's a little optimistic — he'd always teased her about going completely nonfunctional around anyone she had a crush on, and he can't imagine her actually working up the nerve to do anything about her feelings for someone.

Then again, he hasn't known her for fifteen years. Togruta don't blush the way humans and many other species do, but Anakin knows Ahsoka's tells well enough to know when she _would_ be blushing if she could. Now, her cheeks are practically flaming before his eyes. "Both, if you have to know."

He grins, and then remembers she can't see it, and says, "Wow, good job, Snips. You'll have to tell me about that." He tries to push down the flutter of resentment. He'd always thought he'd be there to help her get ready for her first date, and he's missed all of that.

Considering that the Jedi are now an extinct species, he figures that it's not that important in the grand scheme of things, but it still makes him feel a little wistful. Nostalgia for a life he didn't get to live.

"Sometime." She smiles at him, a little hesitant, and he smiles back. It's okay that she can't see it, he thinks. She can feel it. If she remembers knowing him, even after all that's happened and that he doesn't know, then she'll feel it.

It's okay.

 

**iv. ahsoka**

 

It's harder than she expected to see him.

And it's harder still to leave him in her ship. But she goes, because she has things to do, and because as much as she wants to spend every minute with him and absorb the time they have left together, she knows she has to let him breathe. Give him space.

The doctors confirmed shortly after the surgery that his brain injury is going to heal. His memory, or at least a large part of it, will return.

And she'll lose him again.

She hadn't cried after they told her that. She'd simply gone back to her ship, and sat in the cockpit, and wondered if this fate was written in the stars. If the Force decided on this, from the moment she breathed in the air of Shili, or from the moment Plo Koon touched her hand and felt that she was born to be a Jedi, or from the moment that she met Anakin on Christophsis.

If she was always destined to have Anakin Skywalker, to have the one person who always understood her and who always cared for her and who would never hurt her — to have him, and to lose him, over and over.

Walking away from him at the Temple, and leaving her still-beating heart behind, her chest ripped open and empty. Having to nearly kill him on Malachor just to save her own life, because something told her that it would be crueler to let him kill her — that he would never be able to live with that, even if he thought he could.

And for a few glorious days, it had seemed like she had cheated fate. Like she had him back. But nothing that good ever lasts, and especially not for her.

 

She goes to the Ghost as a sort-of distraction, because the crew just returned from a supply run and they have enough downtime to be able to see her. She passes Sabine on her way in, and finds Kanan in the cockpit. She sits down beside him, and he turns to her without looking. She's still not used to the mask, but she's sure she'll adapt to it.

"How is he?" he asks.

Ahsoka looks out the viewport. She can see people in the hangar, moving around, carrying things and talking to each other. "He's fine. I think."

"You _think_?"

He doesn't sound upset, just firmly questioning. As he likely should be. Ahsoka sighs. "I don't know. I need to give him something to do. He doesn't take well to downtime. Are there any droids or ships that need fixing?"

"Is he any good at that?"

"Decent." She snorts a soft laugh at the thought of what he'd say if he'd ever heard her describe his mechanical skills as 'decent'. "Yeah. He's good."

Kanan considers, and then nods. "I'll see if Commander Sato has anything he can do. I'm sure someone can find something." He pauses, and then takes Ahsoka's hand. "It'll be okay, Ahsoka."

She blinks back tears she didn't realize were in her eyes. "Yeah. Thanks."

 

There are a couple of droids in storage that have been malfunctioning so often that they've been put out of use. Anakin's immediate reaction can only be described as 'horrified', and he spends ten minutes crooning over the droids and whispering to them in baby-talk before he actually goes to work on them. Ahsoka stays with him and they make small talk, whiling away the day.

In the end, the two droids work better than they did when the Alliance acquired them and have a new coat of paint to boot, courtesy of Sabine.

Ahsoka didn't dare to hope for what happens next — Anakin's reputation spreading. Within the next two days, three people approach him asking for help with their droids or fighters or ships. Anakin generally isn't one to walk people through work he could do himself in less time, but he's clearly gotten a sense that he needs to win people over, so he takes the time to explain and show his work, and soon he has work to do all day every day.

He's become useful, enough so that Ahsoka could easily justify the cost of his surgeries and keeping him here even if Bail Organa wasn't on her side. She starts to leave him alone more often, doing her own thing with Kanan and Ezra or Hera and Kanan. About two weeks after the surgery, she takes a trip off-planet for two days, and it's not until she gets back and walks into the hangar to see Anakin fixing a droid and surrounded by younglings enthralled in a story he's telling that she realizes that she'd expected him to be gone.

"Hey," she says as she approaches. He looks away from where his hand is buried in the guts of the droid and smiles at her — she can't see it, but his mask moves in a particular way when he smiles, and she can see it in his eyes.

"Snips, hey. I was just telling these kids about our first mission together."

"With the Hutt baby?" She sits down on a storage container next to a Twi'lek youngling clutching a tooka doll to listen.

"Yeah, that one. Alright, this is where it gets fun. So we crash-landed on Tatooine, where I grew up, and we had to take a long walk through a desert…"

Ahsoka listens, and interjects when his storytelling becomes too self-complementary, and can feel the rift in her chest fluttering around the edges. Getting smaller, for the first time since it opened.

 

**v. anakin**

 

The nightmares keep coming.

They're more and more violent, too. Deaths, more and more, a different one or many different ones every night. Not killings in battle, either. Cold-blooded.

And flashes of sense memory, too. His hands creaking in black nerf-leather gloves, twisting, while his mind wrings the neck of some simpering fool. His breathing, loud in the silence and darkness, surrounded by bodies. His voice uttering cold and precise threats, and his hands following through. A blood red lightsaber in his hands.

The morning of that memory, he wakes up thinking about being a Jedi again.

He hasn't asked Ahsoka where his lightsaber is. He doesn't think she'd know, but he'd like one, and if he confirms that his is — gone, or inaccessible, then maybe he can travel to Ilum and get a crystal for a new one. He could ask Ahsoka to go with him. A trip, for old time's sake.

Of course, the lightsaber doesn't make the Jedi. But he'd feel more like himself if he had one again. He knows Ahsoka has 'sabers, even if they aren't the ones she had when he knew her, but she rarely uses them, and she no longer considers herself a Jedi anyway.

It's also strange, he considers as he takes a shower — sonic, and not a very good one, either, judging by the way his ears ring after every time he uses it — that he has so many memories of using a red lightsaber. He figures maybe he stole one and couldn't make his own again, so he was stuck with it. It's not a very likely scenario, but he'd prefer it to the ideas that are brewing about how he actually spent the last fifteen years.

He approaches Ahsoka that day about a trip to Ilum, and she agrees. Ezra Bridger — the Jedi padawan that Ahsoka has told him not to interact with — needs a new 'saber due to an unspecified incident, so the trip could be useful to more than him.

 

The trip to Ilum goes smoothly. He makes small talk with Ezra, who is hesitant but polite, and when they get back, he takes the materials for his new lightsaber — chosen from a pile of scraps without looking, letting the Force guide his hand — to the small cabin he'd been moved to when it became clear that he couldn't keep living on Ahsoka's ship. This time is easier than the first time he made a lightsaber, because he's older, and it's easier to float the pieces together and make them fit around the crystal.

The lightsaber, when it falls into his hand, blazes blue as the sky. Blue as his first lightsaber.

He swings it back and forth a few times, and smiles.

 

He asks Ahsoka to spar. She agrees, hesitantly, and they set a time and place: tomorrow, in the _Ghost_.

Somehow word gets out about their upcoming spar, and apparently some people have decided that it's actually something like a cage fight and have begun betting on a winner. When Ahsoka shows up in workout clothes and a cheerful grin, she leaves the door open, exposing the _Ghost's_ cargo bay to the whole hangar.

"Ready, Skyguy?" she asks, bouncing on the balls of her feet. They'd laid out the rules yesterday: first round, no weapons and purely warm-up, timed for ten minutes. Second round, still no weapons, to a yield. Third round, with lightsabers, and to a yield. Anakin is required to wrap his hands and feet, because they're metal and thus an unfair advantage, and Ahsoka is going bare-handed and barefoot.

Anakin has been trying to keep in shape — running laps around the base, lifting droids and parts during his mechanical work, and now practicing drills with his new lightsaber — but he knows he can't compete against Ahsoka, who clearly has years of practice on him, and that's okay. He wants to feel the rush of a spar again, the thrill of trying to outthink your opponent with your body. It's like a real fight, but less fatal, and Anakin isn't quite ready for the front lines again, so this will do.

Hera — one of Ahsoka's partners that she never talks about — takes a seat on the sidelines with Ahsoka's other partner Kanan (also never talked about) and their crew, and holds up a timer. "Ten minutes, starting — now!"

Ahsoka dives in and strikes a solid blow to Anakin's shoulder before darting around him and kicking his back, sending him stumbling forward. Before he can recover his balance, she's back in front of him with an uppercut and a spin kick to the head that he only barely dodges.

She expected to land the kick, so she stumbles a little on the landing, and he takes advantage, diving in and sweeping her legs out from under her. She flips, lands on her feet, wobbles only a little, and dodges two rapid punches before going up and under to hit Anakin's ribs hard.

He does a flip backwards, surprises himself by landing it, and does a spin kick like Ahsoka's. He misses, too, and when Ahsoka tries to sweep his legs out he catches her kick and flips her onto her back. All the air leaves her in a rushing breath and she glares at him for only a second before leaping to her feet and diving back in.

By the time the ten minute timer sounds, Anakin is covered in sweat and breathing harder than he can remember doing since he woke up. His breathing mask seems to be holding up, and he thinks his daily runs are paying off, because the hard exercise is difficult but not painful except where Ahsoka landed a particularly good hit.

"Good job," she says as she drinks water and fans herself with one hand. "You've been keeping up practice?"

"Felt like I hadn't done it in ten years when I started," Anakin says, "but I got the hang of it again quick enough. You've been doing better than me, though."

"I've had to fight with my fists regularly over the past fifteen years," she says with a little laugh. "I have to keep on my toes."

"What have I been doing, then?" Anakin asks, laughing along with her. "Just hanging out? Haven't I needed to defend myself?"

Ahsoka looks away, and Anakin doesn't miss the way her laugh died instantly when he asked what he'd been doing. "Next round?"

Anakin takes one more long drink — his mask has a latched tube for eating and drinking, which he is profoundly grateful for — and nods.

The next round goes on for about six minutes when Ahsoka scrapes a win. Applause sounds from the hangar, and Anakin can hear credits changing hands as he and Ahsoka hydrate and get their lightsabers for the final round.

It's like something changes, this time. There's something in Ahsoka's eyes that wasn't there before. Something hard and cold, but not out of cruelty — out of fear. Out of being cornered.

Anakin doesn't have much time to consider before Hera rings a bell and calls the round.

Ahsoka's 'sabers are lit and sweeping towards him in a converging arc before he can think. His lightsaber seems to jump into his hands to catch hers just in time, and the joined blades of light dip so closes to his face that he's sure his eyebrows would've been singed off if he still had them. He shoves off the blades with some difficulty, and has to block another hit nearly instantly.

Ahsoka's lightsaber skills are near what he remembers, he realizes as the fight wears on. Her physical fighting skills have strongly advanced, but it's clear that she hasn't had anyone to spar with regularly and hasn't been getting in enough fights to stay in practice. Most of what's improved are direct results of the physical fighting.

That's just fine by Anakin. He's doing better in this fight than either of the others. It's like his body moves without even having to think, the muscle memory embedded so deep that he could fight off an army without a thought. He uses moves that he doesn't remember ever using before. It's disconcerting to see his body's muscle memory in action without knowing where the memory came from.

The fight wears on without either of them gaining a clear advantage. It'll be down to a lucky shot at this point, Anakin knows.

When he goes a little too slow and leaves himself open, he figures Ahsoka will take the shot. He knows that he made a mistake, and he's ready to be defeated. Try again next time and all that.

She does take it, but she makes a mistake too. One of her lightsabers is missing now, so she only has one when she swings it up to rest by his neck. Her other hand is a fist driving into his gut, a fist that she probably thought he'd block — but both of Anakin's hands are raising in a yield. As a result, her punch hits his stomach so hard that he feels like he's going to throw up and he falls backwards. His head meets something metal as he hears Ahsoka shout something — his name? — and everything goes black.

 

And then he remembers.

 

When he wakes up several hours later, it's dark and he's alone in his room. He flips on the light and stands, and walks over to the mirror.

The face staring out is the one he's gotten used to over the recent weeks. But he can see a shadow of the man he's been for fifteen years. If he doesn't focus his eyes, he can see a black helmet around his head. The rasping breath seems to echo in the back of his mind.

He remembers, now, that he killed Padmé. He killed the Jedi. He nearly killed Ahsoka.

And for the first time in a long time, he's horrified by it.

 

The first time Anakin became Vader, he'd lost everything. The last remains of Anakin Skywalker had burned away when Padmé died, and he'd spent fifteen years with nothing else to live for. He'd been so used to it that not even Ahsoka could shake him from his apathy. That he'd tried to kill her.

But now he's become Anakin again, and he remembers being Vader, and he doesn't know if he wants to go back.

 

In the end, it's barely a choice at all.

 

This time, when he becomes Vader, the mask is not for him. It is for everyone else.

 

He leaves a note for Ahsoka and access to enough credits to replace her ship. Not just that, even — it's an Imperial account with credits in the hundreds of millions. One of many he has access to. It gives the Alliance financial freedom that they've never had before.

He hopes they use it well. He can't be there to help them on that end, but he can do better as Vader.

When he comes out of hyperspace, he's greeted by Coruscant. The glowing city-planet. His home.

He reaches for his comm. "Hello, master. I'm home."

 

**vi. ahsoka**

 

Ahsoka finds Anakin missing moments before she hears the roar of her ship's engine from the hangar. She doesn't bother to run — it's too late, and he's gone back to the Empire. She closes her eyes, and breathes through the heartache.

She's about to leave his room when she notices a flimsiplast on on dresser. Hope rises before she can stop it, and she practically runs to unfold it.

It's a note from Anakin.

 

 

 

> _Snips,_
> 
> _Sorry about your ship. I needed transport. Use the account number at the bottom to replace it. It's an account that no one will miss, so use as much as the Alliance needs — and use it quickly. I have a feeling you'll need it._
> 
> _I'm going back to Coruscant. I don't have any contact information to leave you, but I'll send a message through the_ Ghost _with a meeting spot if all goes well._
> 
> _See you soon._
> 
> _Anakin_

 

Below is the account number. She pulls up her holopad and accesses the account with a few swipes of her finger and—

Oh.

More than the Rebellion would need for another ten years.

She reads the note over again and a smile slowly spreads over her face.

 

**epilogue: anakin**

 

He isn't sure if she'll come.

Christophsis didn't suffer much under the Empire — at least, not its architecture. Aside from the monstrosity of the Imperial Complex ruining the city skyline, it looks almost the same as it did twenty years ago, when Anakin found out he had a padawan.

The address he'd sent two days ago is a small cantina near the city spaceport. He's inside, a cloak covering him enough that he probably won't be recognized. He's been watching people come in and out for the last hour or so, and it's just about time for the meeting.

He waits.

At five minutes past, a Togruta woman walks into the cantina, a white cloak thrown over her montrals. He can't see her face, but he knows who it is even before she sits down across from him and he can see under the cloak. Just like she knew exactly where he was when she walked in despite his face being hidden.

"Hi, Skyguy," she says, and reaches out to take one of his metal hands. She squeezes, once. "Can we get out of here?"

He follows her to the spaceport. Her ship, shiny and new, is waiting.

"I lost yours," he tells her solemnly as they board. "Well, it blew up."

"That's okay. Was it for a good cause?"

"The best."

She throws off her cloak and sits down in the pilot's seat, flashing a grin at him. "That's great, then." She waits for him to sit down in the co-pilot's seat. "Where to now?"

Anakin leans back in the chair, and smiles. "Anywhere."

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [On a columnar self (The middle of the mess I don't understand remix)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15943355) by [rthstewart](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rthstewart/pseuds/rthstewart)




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